I broadly think that permanent and static modifiers in EU4 are bad. Please allow me to expand.
PART 1: The military
For example, the way Morale and Discipline modifiers work in EU4, mainly coming from permanent national ideas and tech, is a poor system. Technological progress can be modeled through better units (pips affect both damage and morale), but morale and discipline modifiers should be 80%-90% determined dynamically and interwoven with other game systems:
-morale should depend on the nation's prestige, legitimacy, war exhaustion, army maintenance, possibly even warscore or taking significant casualties (casualties might be woven into prestige and war exhaustion, for example).
-discipline should also not depend on tech; instead, tech/advancements should enable mechanics for improving discipline. Maybe an additional government reform slot could be devoted to "military reforms", and you could select for specific drills that would be unlocked through advancements. Discipline should be also derived from Army Tradition (a wonderful, dynamic value in EU4), and it would be cool to have something related to officers
(for example, giving nobles the right to lead might lower discipline, vs creating a professional officer corps; further down the line, it would be interesting to have more fully fledged officer mechanics, maybe not like in legacy HOI or Vicky, but represented through laws, policies, buildings, or some type of "army leadership" value that is tied into the estates - the Teutonic Knights might derive their leadership from Clergy and Noblemen pops, a revolutionary republican government might lose a lot of its army leadership because it loses its Noble estate)
There should be trade-offs between morale and discipline as well, and this could tie in to stuff like looting and pillaging
SIDE NOTE:
-army maintenance could be more fully developed: it was common for armies to not be fully funded, and it would be interesting if countries could fund their armies at different levels during war. Maybe we could have (a somewhat Victoria 3 inspired) button system for army maintenance instead of a slider?
-button 1: essentially slider at zero: troops have no morale, basically cannot move or engage in combat
-button 2: slider at 50%: represents a partially mobilized army (if you are anticipating conflict)
-button 3: alider at 100%: no morale penalties, this is a regular army, but not lavishly equipped
-button 4/5: gives performance boosts in morale/damage received/damage inflicted, representing better provisions and equipment, but incredibly expensive (in an exponential way, like advisors in EU4); armies at this level consume more supply
These buttons could be set at an army level, not national level, allowing you to fund specific armies.
PART 2: Diplomacy
-diplomatic reputation is mostly due to permanent modifiers. Makes very little sense in my view. I think this a legacy value in EU4 that has outlived its usefulness. I think Trust is a much better mechanic that can do everything diplo rep can do, but is more dynamic, interactive, and also is local, not global, which allows for deeper diplomatic gameplay.
Instead of diplo rep, maybe have diplomatic tradition. Similar to army tradition, it could be affected by diplomatic upkeep (like how fort maintenance reduces army tradition decay in EU4), successful diplomatic actions could increase diplomatic tradition, using your diplomatic capacity can increase diplomatic tradition, while declaring offensive wars (especially without a CB), breaking truces, gaining antagonism will decrease your diplo tradition.
Diplo tradition would impact how much money you have to spend on bribes, how quickly you can improve relations, how successful you will be in certain diplo actions, etc.
-Diplomatic Relations (the value that goes from -200 to +200) should be redesigned.
Firstly, the "improve relations" action is tedious busywork that is extremely overpowered and too universally useful. I think this button seriously hurts diplomacy in EU4. Here is how I would change it:
-instead of an "improve relations" button, have an "establish embassy" action that would cost upkeep, have the effect cap at 50 instead of 100
-expanded gift mechanics (possibly incorporating works of art)
-more cultural/language mechanics be involved in diplomacy to represent soft power
-more actions should affect relations, like battle participation in ally wars, defending their provinces, giving them beneficial peace deals (would be cool if an enemy became a friend because you gave them white peace terms when you were winning)
-crucial for previous point: EU4 has some of these modifiers, the problem is that these modifiers decay in parallel to one another. +100 in improve relations is powerful because it'll take about 30 years to decay, but four +25 effects aren't as good, because they'll decay in about 7-8 years. Rubbish. So how do you fix this?
Split relations modifiers into "permanent" (same religion, embassy, alliance, same government type, etc). You can incorporate "trust" into relations (0 trust is a perma -100, 100 trust is a perma +100). These permanent modifiers are your "equilibrium" that your relations drift towards.
"Temporary" modifiers (fought together, defended us, gifts, border dispute, fought a war against us, etc): their decay should be pooled and proportional to the difference between the current relation and equilibrium relation. Let's say your equilibrium is 0, and your current relation is 200; let's say that leads to a drift of -20/year, and that -10 is going to be distributed among all the different temporary modifiers. If your equilibrium is 100, then the drift would be -10/year. Maybe there should be some minimum decay, like 5/year up or down.
PART 3: Societal Values and Conclusion
Societal values are a fantastic way to incorporate permanent modifiers dynamically. Being a more conciliatory country should be one of the best ways to increase your diplo tradition, for example.
Having dynamic systems makes the game far more interactive, and allows for countries to really "decay" and become worse at things, which makes sense! It's more interactive, more fluid, more engaging. Your country gets better at things you are doing and gets worse at things that you are neglecting.
PART 1: The military
For example, the way Morale and Discipline modifiers work in EU4, mainly coming from permanent national ideas and tech, is a poor system. Technological progress can be modeled through better units (pips affect both damage and morale), but morale and discipline modifiers should be 80%-90% determined dynamically and interwoven with other game systems:
-morale should depend on the nation's prestige, legitimacy, war exhaustion, army maintenance, possibly even warscore or taking significant casualties (casualties might be woven into prestige and war exhaustion, for example).
-discipline should also not depend on tech; instead, tech/advancements should enable mechanics for improving discipline. Maybe an additional government reform slot could be devoted to "military reforms", and you could select for specific drills that would be unlocked through advancements. Discipline should be also derived from Army Tradition (a wonderful, dynamic value in EU4), and it would be cool to have something related to officers
(for example, giving nobles the right to lead might lower discipline, vs creating a professional officer corps; further down the line, it would be interesting to have more fully fledged officer mechanics, maybe not like in legacy HOI or Vicky, but represented through laws, policies, buildings, or some type of "army leadership" value that is tied into the estates - the Teutonic Knights might derive their leadership from Clergy and Noblemen pops, a revolutionary republican government might lose a lot of its army leadership because it loses its Noble estate)
There should be trade-offs between morale and discipline as well, and this could tie in to stuff like looting and pillaging
SIDE NOTE:
-army maintenance could be more fully developed: it was common for armies to not be fully funded, and it would be interesting if countries could fund their armies at different levels during war. Maybe we could have (a somewhat Victoria 3 inspired) button system for army maintenance instead of a slider?
-button 1: essentially slider at zero: troops have no morale, basically cannot move or engage in combat
-button 2: slider at 50%: represents a partially mobilized army (if you are anticipating conflict)
-button 3: alider at 100%: no morale penalties, this is a regular army, but not lavishly equipped
-button 4/5: gives performance boosts in morale/damage received/damage inflicted, representing better provisions and equipment, but incredibly expensive (in an exponential way, like advisors in EU4); armies at this level consume more supply
These buttons could be set at an army level, not national level, allowing you to fund specific armies.
PART 2: Diplomacy
-diplomatic reputation is mostly due to permanent modifiers. Makes very little sense in my view. I think this a legacy value in EU4 that has outlived its usefulness. I think Trust is a much better mechanic that can do everything diplo rep can do, but is more dynamic, interactive, and also is local, not global, which allows for deeper diplomatic gameplay.
Instead of diplo rep, maybe have diplomatic tradition. Similar to army tradition, it could be affected by diplomatic upkeep (like how fort maintenance reduces army tradition decay in EU4), successful diplomatic actions could increase diplomatic tradition, using your diplomatic capacity can increase diplomatic tradition, while declaring offensive wars (especially without a CB), breaking truces, gaining antagonism will decrease your diplo tradition.
Diplo tradition would impact how much money you have to spend on bribes, how quickly you can improve relations, how successful you will be in certain diplo actions, etc.
-Diplomatic Relations (the value that goes from -200 to +200) should be redesigned.
Firstly, the "improve relations" action is tedious busywork that is extremely overpowered and too universally useful. I think this button seriously hurts diplomacy in EU4. Here is how I would change it:
-instead of an "improve relations" button, have an "establish embassy" action that would cost upkeep, have the effect cap at 50 instead of 100
-expanded gift mechanics (possibly incorporating works of art)
-more cultural/language mechanics be involved in diplomacy to represent soft power
-more actions should affect relations, like battle participation in ally wars, defending their provinces, giving them beneficial peace deals (would be cool if an enemy became a friend because you gave them white peace terms when you were winning)
-crucial for previous point: EU4 has some of these modifiers, the problem is that these modifiers decay in parallel to one another. +100 in improve relations is powerful because it'll take about 30 years to decay, but four +25 effects aren't as good, because they'll decay in about 7-8 years. Rubbish. So how do you fix this?
Split relations modifiers into "permanent" (same religion, embassy, alliance, same government type, etc). You can incorporate "trust" into relations (0 trust is a perma -100, 100 trust is a perma +100). These permanent modifiers are your "equilibrium" that your relations drift towards.
"Temporary" modifiers (fought together, defended us, gifts, border dispute, fought a war against us, etc): their decay should be pooled and proportional to the difference between the current relation and equilibrium relation. Let's say your equilibrium is 0, and your current relation is 200; let's say that leads to a drift of -20/year, and that -10 is going to be distributed among all the different temporary modifiers. If your equilibrium is 100, then the drift would be -10/year. Maybe there should be some minimum decay, like 5/year up or down.
PART 3: Societal Values and Conclusion
Societal values are a fantastic way to incorporate permanent modifiers dynamically. Being a more conciliatory country should be one of the best ways to increase your diplo tradition, for example.
Having dynamic systems makes the game far more interactive, and allows for countries to really "decay" and become worse at things, which makes sense! It's more interactive, more fluid, more engaging. Your country gets better at things you are doing and gets worse at things that you are neglecting.
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